Dummett killed in road accident

Geologist Hugo T. Dummett, whose knowledge of diamond exploration made BHP Billiton (BHP-N) a major force in world diamond mining, has died. He was 62.

Dummett was killed in a single-car accident on a highway outside Johannesburg on Aug. 28, following a business meeting. He was alone in the vehicle at the time.

Dummett was best known in Canadian mining circles for his role in the discovery and development of the Ekati diamond mine in the Northwest Territories, in association with Charles Fipke and Stuart Blusson. Fipke and Blusson had been running a diamond exploration program in the Northwest Territories as consultants for Falconbridge (FL-T) and its then-affiliate, Superior Oil, when those companies finally gave up on diamond exploration in the 1980s. Dummett, who had managed the exploration program for Superior, had been in regular contact with the two consultants.

Fipke and Blusson acquired the land package and an accompanying set of exploration data from their old clients and began to explore it themselves, while Dummett went on to work for BHP, now BHP Billiton.

In the early 1990s Fipke, looking for financing for his project in the Point Lake area of the northern Slave province, approached Dummett at BHP. Dummett convinced BHP management to take on a joint venture with Fipke’s Vancouver-listed junior, Dia Met Minerals. Between 1991 and 1994, BHP and Dia Met announced a series of discoveries that established the Northwest Territories as a prime area for diamond exploration. The companies put the Ekati diamond mine into production in late 1998.

The Northern Miner named Dummet its Mining Man of the Year at the time, labelling him the “unsung hero” of the Canadian diamond industry.

In 1997, he received the William Lawrence Saunders Gold Medal from the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers, for “his pivotal contribution to the discovery of the Northwest Territories diamond deposits and as a leader in a very successful worldwide BHP exploration team.” He also received the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration’s Daniel C. Jackling award.

In addition to his work on the Canadian diamond deposits, Dummet was part of the teams that developed porphyry-copper deposits at Tintaya in Peru and Alumbrera in Argentina for BHP. He supervised the exploration departments that discovered the Hope Bay gold deposits in Nunavut and the Oyu Tolgoi deposit in Mongolia.

At the time of his death, he was president of the Society of Economic Geologists. His vice-president, William Chavez, has been appointed acting president of the Society.

In 2000, following BHP’s merger with Billiton, Dummett left BHP and shortly afterward took on the job of chief executive at Robert Friedland’s privately held African Minerals. Dummett had been visiting the Platreef property near Potgietersrus in the Northern Province at the time of the car accident.

Dummett was also executive vice-president of project development at Ivanhoe Mines (IVN-T) and held directorships in Tahera (TAH-T) and Shore Gold (SGF-V).

Born in Springs, just east of Johannesburg, in 1940, Dummett held a B.Sc. in geology from the University of the Witswatersrand. He emigrated to Australia in 1970 and subsequently lived in the United States. He leaves his wife and two daughters.